


Sugar in My Pasta

by fantom_ftnoise



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Depression, Food, Food Issues, M/M, POV First Person, mentions alcohol but no drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 17:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17248124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fantom_ftnoise/pseuds/fantom_ftnoise
Summary: Tomorrow is a threat, not a promise.





	Sugar in My Pasta

The problem with dying and resurrecting at 17, I think, is that the other side looks long and bleak compared to a little train ride. Sure, the world is safe, but it’s also cold and empty. And being granted another life feels more like a curse. Like I’ve done something wrong and now I have to pay penance. It took every ounce of stubborn will to get out of bed this morning...it’s not even dinner yet and I’ve gone down for a nap twice. The sun can’t shine bright enough. The war is won, but am I supposed to fight this battle again and again, 365 times a year, for another 80 years or so?

 

Tomorrow is a threat, not a promise.

 

He’s always around now. I don’t remember why I said he could move in, but I did and then it happened. It was still summer then… On moving day, his sweat soaked through his shirt and funked up the stairway, but in a way that wasn’t entirely awful. It smelled like heat and life.

 

He used to spend his time in his room, but lately he’s been joining me in the drawing room. He reads. My eyes can’t be arsed to track words across a page, so I mostly just stare at the wall. Sometimes he draws - in a little sketchbook, with charcoal that leaves smudges on his pale fingers - but I can’t fathom how he gets his hand to move like that when it’s all I can do to make my chest rise and fall.

 

Kreacher’s cooking is experimental at best, and I’d rather starve than stir, so lo and behold the ice prince learnt how to cook. I eat it, and wonder if he still hates me or if it’s just my own mouth that turns everything to ash. I think he dumped a load of sugar in the pasta once, just to see if I would notice, but I suspect he is as competent in the kitchen as he was in the potions lab. That is to say, he’s obviously still trying to poison me, but I don’t mind anymore. Maybe these next 80 years will be more interesting with a bit of poison.

 

When he exercises, he props the back door open - no matter the weather - and the garden air mixes with his sweat. It breathes new life into the house and makes my nose twitch. Sometimes I join him - like when it rains. I don’t know why the rain makes me feel more adequate. Less like a failure. It’s the sun that should be ashamed, not me... I did my duty. But now all I have to look forward to is sugar-pasta and the acrid stench of sweat.

 

“Happy New Year,” he says, toasting my champagne flute with his. He filled them with chocolate milk because alcohol is a depressant. 

 

“Happy,” I can’t help but scoff. My chest is heavy. My eyes hurt. I hate my favorite wall now and he won’t show me what he’s been drawing until I whip up something to show him too. The wanker.

 

“New Year,” he insists.

 

Only 79 more to go.


End file.
